Abstract: Our experience of Bangla literature of the 19^th century Bengal compels us to rewrite and expand the parameters of post-colonialism as a discourse. This discourse is not simply about texts produced after the colonial experience, but about responses to the colonial experience from the very moment of cultural encounter. The post-colonial in Dinabandhu Mitra’s Nil Durpan (1960) is ‘a way of talking about the political and discursive strategies of colonized societies…’ (Ashcroft on Post-Colonial Futures, 24). The politics and the strategy are evident in the preface of the play, which seems to be a translation of a ‘subjunctive’ English text. The first English translation of the play may be read along with the ‘more faithful’ later translation (1992) to recognize these ways of talking/representation.

          “Because if…the work was so injurious in its vernacular dress, was I not doing a public service by making such work in English? (From the Address of the Reverend J. Long to the court before the sentence was passed) (Rao 148)^.” ¹

Dinabandhu Mitra, one of the most powerful dramatists of 19^th century Bengal , wrote his first play Neel Darpan (1860) ² on the oppression of the white Indigo planters in Bengal in the 1850s. The play revolves round an old landholder and his family: it graphically dramatizes the plight of that family and the peasants of Lower Bengal through scenes of physical torture, rape, murder and death.

            The Bangla play was a contemporary stage success by itself. However, it became historically and politically famous after it was translated into English as The Mirror of Indigo Planters (1861). The subsequent trial of Rev. James Long who confessed to have published and edited the translation (148) is a part of India 's colonial history. It also testifies to the importance of translation in the project of the British Empire .

         The preface to the play addresses the numerous indigo-planters who are offered the Neel Darpan, 'so that they may take a look, reflected in it’ (183). Mitra transposes the social, political and economic situations affected by the tyranny of the indigo planters to a literary field superimposing 'readability' on the dispersed events of the time by translating the events to a play. That he was conscious of the transposition is evident in the title of the play, which offers darpan or 'Mirror' as the central image.  He develops the preface on a metaphorical networking: the politics of this metaphorical recasting lies in elevating the local cultural markers to universal moral properties. The 'sandal paste' with which the selfish planters are requested to adorn their foreheads stands for benevolence. The European milieu, by such metaphoric use, is transposed to a Hindu field of signs. In his preface, Mitra employs this transitional strategy to invoke the universal 'moral' world of good and evil, right and wrong and thus rescues the issue of human relationships from the political identities of the dominator and the dominated. The contingent power structures, the legitimising identities that facilitate discriminatory credentials, collapse under the universal moral categories of good and evil. This idea of good and evil is again translated through the metaphors of 'lotus' and 'worm': the good 'sahibs', the good governors like Grant and Eden are the 'lotus' in 'the lake of civil service’ and the indigo planters are the 'worms’ eating into the fame of the British. The planters are warned that the good civilians like Grant, 'the very personification of Justice’, will wield their judicial power to save the oppressed: 'Holding the sudarshan chakra in their own hands, they will rid the peasant of the evil demon Rahu, who has seized him, and causes him unbearable misery in the form of the indigo planter’ (184). The planters and the civilians, the malevolent and benevolent 'sahibs' both are Indianized through metaphors and they internalise and submit to an expected pattern of behaviour. I would argue that in such use, the sign becomes the site of 're-territorialization'. The aliens are domiciled in the territory of Indian myths, the oppressor as demon and the protector as the sudarshan chakra -wielding Krishna .

            Mitra's preface is addressed to the Indigo planters as if waiting to be translated into English. Unless that is done the voice cannot be activated [as Long has said in defense of the translation, "The ryot was a dumb animal who did not know his rulers' language” (Raos 149-50)].   The preface is an appeal; it is not a part of the play. It is meant to be read and therefore must be rendered in the language of the addressee. Dinabandhu Mitra, later awarded the title ‘Raishaheb’, would have made his prefatory appeal in the language of the colonizers; this subjunctive text therefore seems to wait to be written back into English. As for the play, a performance of the original Bangla play would be an effective translation. When the play was being staged in Lucknow (1875), the rape scene in which a planter was humbled by a Muslim peasant to enrage the British audience that 'they crowded near the footlights’ and a few British soldiers drew their swords and climbed on the stage. The show was ordered to be withdrawn (3).

            Neel Darpan, contrary to popular belief, is hardly the revolutionary 'pre-test' play it is championed to be. And although its invective is ostensibly against British indigo-plantation owners, the political scheme of the plot owes more to middle-class conceptions of rebellious behaviour rather than the organized, though unsuccessful, subaltern uprising that the indigo movement of 1860 actually had been. That the vernacular play and the playwright were considered potentially innocuous is supported by the fact that Dinabandhu Mitra was awarded the title 'Raisaheb’ for his service to the British Empire (in the postal department during the Lusai war) in 1871 (i.e. 11 years after the publication of his play). It is believed that he wanted to share the punishment of Long, but the court held Long solely responsible. Another report says that when the troop performing Neel Darpan in Lucknow was afraid that the English magistrate in the audience might be offended, it was assured by the magistrate that it had nothing to be afraid of - Dinabandhu Mitra was his friend (3). The proceedings and the result of the trial of James Long amply proved the political potential of the target language text over that of the source text.

       If Mitra's play was written to appeal to the white planters, Long's publication was to warn the powers that be. In his address to the court before the sentence was passed, Long had said,

I can only state …what is personal to myself as to the motives which actuated me to publish the Nil Darpan, on the grounds of my being a Missionary, -an expounder of native feeling as expressed in the native press - a friend to securing peace for Europeans in the country - and a friend to the social elevation of the natives. (147)

            We remember that the statement above is a part of Long's defense at the court; however, it is interesting to note his prioritization of identities. He is a missionary, expounder of the native press, friend to both the parties, the Europeans and the natives, the necessity of the 'social elevation of the natives’ (147) was required to ensure the peace of the Europeans and to preach the gospel. He wrote: 'Christianity has as yet made comparatively little way among the population of Bengal . In my own observation and experience one of the most prominent causes appears to be mental, moral and social degradation of the ryot’ (Mitra 103). He had lectured on Peasant degradation: an obstacle to Gospel propagation (153). ³ That he was thinking more in terms of the propagation of the Bible and political sagacity than for the cause of secular human concern is manifest in his locating the issue of oppression to a contingent political background.

Russia & Russian influence are rapidly approaching the frontiers of India (150) … the mere armies can no more secure the English in India…my duty as a clergyman is to help the good cause of peace …by containing & listening to their complaints. (151)

         This colonial project of translation was mainly political; it was an act of surveillance facilitating knowledge of and subsequent control over the dominated subject. By his own admission, Long had been submitting 'hundreds and thousands of Bengali Books during the last ten years to the notice of Europeans of influence’, 'sending copies of all Bengali translations’ and ‘procuring vernacular books of all kinds for missionaries’. In the case of Nil Durpan there was nothing exceptional he had pleaded. He admitted to have '… edited (the translation) with a view of informing Europeans of influence, of its contents, as giving native popular opinion on the indigo question…’.  He, of course, added that he had 'circulated it chiefly among men of influence in England and those connected with the legislature, which to the oppressed of whatever colour of country had always afforded sympathy & redress’ (147-156) ⁴.  This sympathy and redress would also facilitate the prospect of propagating the Bible.

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